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THE GREAT DEPRESSION. HARD TIMES in America, and the emergence of modern social work1929-1940.
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THE GREAT DEPRESSION HARD TIMES in America, and the emergence of modern social work1929-1940
“The problem of the government is to fix rates which will bring in a maximum amount of revenue to the Treasury and at the same time bear not too heavily on the taxpayer or on business enterprises. A sound tax policy must take into consideration three factors. It must produce sufficient revenue for the government; it must lessen, so far as possible, the burden of taxation on those least able to bear it; and it must also remove those influences which might retard the continued steady development of business and industry on which, in the last analysis, so much of our prosperity depends.” Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, on taxes. Causes of the Crash --Taxes
As a result of overproduction in agriculture, prices of grain and raw materials (cotton, linen, etc.) remained low. As a result of low wages, few could affords consumer goods like washing machines, etc. Causes --Overproduction As factories cut back on production, unemployment began to rise.
Causes -- Bank Failures By the beginning of 1929, the balances in savings accounts were $200 million below that of 1927-28.
Causes --Over Speculation By the end of May 1929, the total value of American stocks had dropped by $3 billion – a result of unemployment, margin calls, and bad investments.
Causes -- Segregation It was estimated that segregation in the southern states had a negative impact on production and spending of from 15 to 30 percent.
THE CRASH $30 billion lost on October 29, 1929.
Bank Failures – 9000 banks holding $7 billion (no deposit insurance)
Waiting for Day Work In rural and urban America, groups of men would hope to be selected for a day’s work, picking fruit, painting, anything.
Homelessness This deserted rail box car was used as a home by three families in California, in the early 1930s. In cities, families lived in old basement coal bins.
Unemployment BREAD LINE – NYC, 1930
Herbert Hoover – National Recovery Administration. The NRA promised recovery “in the long run.” “People don’t eat in the long run, they eat every day.” – J. M. Keynes.
Bonus March 1932 -- When World War I veterans came to Washington to ask Congress to pay theme their bonus payments, the US Army drove them out and burned their tent city.
Franklin D. Roosevelt “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” FDR, April 1945
Elements of the New Deal • Relief – Jobs for the unemployed. • Recovery – Restoring the economy. • Reform – preventing abuses in banking, etc.
Eleanor Roosevelt – The Nation’s Conscience “She is the greatest argument for mercy killing I know. She should have been shot as a child” – NY banker. “If Democracy had saints . . . Mrs. Roosevelt would be one” – Archibald MacLeish.
Harry Hopkins A native of Iowa, Hopkins was trained at one of the NYC settlement houses, rose to become the head of most of New York’s social services, and was elected President of the American Association of Social Workers in 1923. He and Eleanor Roosevelt had more influence on the New Deal than most others.
New Deal and the Farmer Farm Legislation
The New Deal and Its Critics “Every Time he said ‘my friends,’ with that superior tone of his, it was all I could do to keep from kicking the hell out of the radio.” NY businessman on FDR’s fireside chats “[Many] had never done an honest day’s work in their life and I don’t think ever intended to if they could get out of it. Loafers, you know, that’s all they were.” Pennsylvania mailman on depression work relief programs.
WPA – Wasting the Taxpayer’s $ ?? When you look at things today Like Boulder Dam and TVA And all those playgrounds where kids can play We did it--by leaning on a shovel! “Sing for Your Supper” -- a WPA Musical
American Communism and the Depression The U.S. Communist Party’s presidential candidate received 103,000 votes in the 1932 election.
“The battle is on! Go this morning to the nearest picket line and put up a united front, mass struggle against the greedy landlords of New York.” Quote from the Daily Worker, 1933
Depression and the Family Mirra Komarovsky, a refugee from the Russian Revolution, pioneered in studying the effect of financial hard times on the family. Her 1940 book The Unemployed Man and His Family, is a model for understanding the relationship between finances and social dysfunction.
Populism – Work Ethic Guilt “Yes I’m out of work. I’m fifty-two you see and I used to make good wages. I was proud, sure of myself, I thought things would always go on as they were. When I did make good money I spent it. Now I can’t find a job. So it’s my own fault.” Told to Sherwood Anderson, in Puzzled America (1935)
Populism – Writers of Protest “Mother’s hands were always puckered and grey while she was washing [clothes for the town butcher, to whom she owed money]. Her head was enveloped in a cloud of steam all day [and] the washboard kept her dress waist frayed.”– Jack Conroy, The Disinherited (1933)
Populism – Urban Protest “[After waking on a park bench] I reached Fifth Avenue. Near Madison my eyes lit on two bottles of milk on a doorstep. I took one and ducked into an alley to drink it. The doorways of grocery stores were just beginning to fill [with deliveries]. Drivers were leaving bread and rolls tied into gunny sacks. I found a chain store, made as though I were looking to see if they had opened, and tucked away a sweet rye.” Edward Newhouse (New Masses staff) You Can’t Sleep Here (1934)
Social Assistance at the Grass Roots “Only the social workers and the people in close contact with them have any correct idea of what has been going on these past three years [1935-1938]. Hundreds of thousands of the general public, and the intelligent public at that, have no conception of what conditions of life have come to light in trying to cope with [the Great Depression]” -- Louise Armstrong, We Too are the People (1938) – an account of providing emergency relief to residents of a rural Michigan county.
